In the past, various different schemes have been utilized to effect the selective vending of a vended article from a vending machine in response to a preselected vending signal. To effect the operation of one of the past vending machines, a purchaser actuated a vended article selection device, such as a selection button or set thereof for instance, of such vending machine thereby to indicate the vended article selected for purchase by the purchaser, and the purchaser also inserted the necessary amount of money into a money counting device of such vending machine for purchasing the selected vended article. In response of the aforementioned actuation of the vended article selection device and the receipt of the necessary purchase money in the counting device, circuitry provided in the vending machine was energized to establish the preselected vending signal, and upon the generation of the preselected vending signal, a vended article delivery or dispensing device was selectively operated to dispense the selected vended article into a receptacle or removal container of the vending machine permitting the retrieval therefrom of the selected vended article by the purchaser.
Of course, various different vended article dispensing devices were employed in various different vending machines to effect the delivery of the selected vended article to the purchaser, and one such article dispensing device is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,097,986 issued Mar. 24, 1992. In this patent, a rended article dispensing device is illustrated as a set of coils that are selectively conjointly rotatable in motor driven fashion about the longitudinal axis of the coils. A plurality of vended articles are disposed in horizontally supported compartments defined between adjacent coils, and upon the selected conjoint rotation of the coils, the vended articles contained in the coils are conjointly moved forwardly by a certain distance toward a front opening in a space supporting the vended articles. Thus, in response to the selected conjoint rotation of the coils, the forwardmost selected vended article in the coils is passed through the front opening in the space supporting the vended article and falls through a drop chute into a retrieval container from which it can be taken by a purchaser.
It is believed that the above discussed vended article dropped through the drop chute into the retrieval container may have been limited to unbreakable articles, such as articles in plastic wrappers or other items in plastic bags or the like for instance.